SEMIN: Unjust victim of a systematic process of intimidation, manipulation, and scape

[tarheelhockey]

While it's true he has taken his share of hits in open ice (Cowen, Orpik, Sutton), it's not universally true that's where he takes all his hits.

Of course he doesn't universally take ALL his hits in any particular place.

His concussion in pre-season was exactly a play close to the net.

That wasn't even a hit though, he got clipped from behind by an elbow and it flukishly caught him just the wrong way.

His concussion against Toronto last year was holding on to the puck too long while driving to the net with the puck. Both are the prime scoring areas I am referring to.

There there are other examples as well:

The 2nd and 5th videos are other cases of him trying to wriggle past defenders in open space.

My point was just that his issue with getting blown up by defenders is a reflection of how he tries to dance around on the rush, rather than how he plays close to the net. He occasionally gets splattered on the glass behind the net, but there's nothing unusual about that. Much more often he creates scoring chances in close.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

That wasn't even a hit though, he got clipped from behind by an elbow and it flukishly caught him just the wrong way.

That's irrelevant though, I simply said it was an area that puts him at risk (my initial post that I assume you were responding to). Not sure that's even debatable where hits like that can happen, thus a dangerous area, especially for him.

The 2nd and 5th videos are other cases of him trying to wriggle past defenders in open space.

The 2nd one he's 2 feet from the net and he's not trying to wriggle past anyone, he is just going hard to the net to try for a scoring chance, he just holds onto it too long and that's EXACTLY what I'm talking about when I say it's that area that puts him at risk. I never brought up nor implied "getting blown up by defenders" or "tight spaces", I just said he likes to drive to the net, go to the dirty areas which puts him in at risk. That is precisely what I am referring to.

The 5th video, while further from the net isn't really open ice. He's right along the boards, again driving hard to get to the net and get's rubbed out into the board, but it's probably not a good example either way.

My point was just that his issue with getting blown up by defenders is a reflection of how he tries to dance around on the rush, rather than how he plays close to the net. He occasionally gets splattered on the glass behind the net, but there's nothing unusual about that. Much more often he creates scoring chances in close.

Yea, I agree that he has taken his share of big hits trying to dance around on the rush, that's not at all the point. I think you are downplaying how often (and hard) he's been hit in and around the net also. Only 1 of his 3 concussions have come when trying to dance around a guy in open ice, the other two have been right in front of the net. He's a smaller guy, and has a concussion history, that area is now more dangerous for someone like him because of his history.

I agree that he much more often creates scoring chances, and that he's most effective when he does go into those areas so he has to go there to be most effective, thus why it's a bit of a catch-22.

 

[tarheelhockey]

That's irrelevant though, I simply said it was an area that puts him at risk (my initial post that I assume you were responding to).

I wasn't responding to your post, I was responding to the one saying he gets hammered all the time and should stick to the outside.

 

[StormCast]

Having Semin rowing in any direction would be a start.

Where there is problem right there.

The name Semin translates to coxswain so he doesn't have to row at all.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I wasn't responding to your post, I was responding to the one saying he gets hammered all the time and should stick to the outside.

Ok..sorry, it came right after mine so thought you were referring to me. Ignore the last 3 posts. Or as a Mod, you could just delete that whole sequence.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Ok..sorry, it came right after mine so thought you were referring to me. Ignore the last 3 posts. Or as a Mod, you could just delete that whole sequence.

Boom Boom Anton*

 

[The Stranger]

I can't put a lot of stock in Corsica if it rates Semin as anything other than whale excrement.

This is now my go-to response for this topic.

Corsi is over-sold as a metric for judging individual performance...not worthless, just currently over-sold.

Look at 2012-13...B.Sanguinetti, MA.Bergeron, Z.Dalpe, and T.Brent were top 4 on the team for CF% while E.Staal with his 53 points in 48 games was 20th on the team in this category at 50.0%.

It's true that if you only look at Semin's corsi numbers this year (CF% is 53.2 and iCorsi/60 is 13), without the context of watching the games or looking at other data, it would be easy to conclude that he's performing well when in fact there is consensus he is not.

 

[What the Faulk]

Yes, and this is why we have context. Bergeron and Sanguinetti may have been the two most sheltered players in Hurricanes history. Dalpe played 10 games. Tim Brent faced 4th liners.

Eric Staal scored 53 points because his line shot at an incredibly unsustainable rate that year, as evidenced by what he's done since.

And anyway, that was in response to dismissing corsi in general and not really Semin. Believe it or not, not every post I write on this forum revolves around him.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Corsi tends to get over-sold by people who don't really know how to use it properly. Similar to the way people throw around +/-.

It's a given when dealing with Corsi that it needs to be cross-referenced against other data, particularly zone starts and quality of competition.

 

[Sens1Canes2]

Corsi tends to get over-sold by people who don't really know how to use it properly. Similar to the way people throw around +/-.

It's a given when dealing with Corsi that it needs to be cross-referenced against other data, particularly zone starts and quality of competition.

One of the stats guys...if it pleases you...can you post a through stats-based analysis of Semin so far this year. I'd like to see the difference, if any, between the advanced stats and the eye test. That would be interesting, although admittedly anecdotal (based only on one player).

 

[tarheelhockey]

One of the stats guys...if it pleases you...can you post a through stats-based analysis of Semin so far this year. I'd like to see the difference, if any, between the advanced stats and the eye test. That would be interesting, although admittedly anecdotal (based only on one player).

IMO the best thumbnail view is the usage chart that's gradually becoming popular.

So the easiest ice time is in the bottom right hand corner, a bigger bubble represents the amount of ice time, and the darker blues mean a strong Corsi.

At a glance, Semin has been arguably the team's worst forward relative to the opportunities he's been provided. The only player with a noticeably weaker Corsi in a comparable TOI deployment is Tlusty (that's the bubble hiding behind Lindholm) but Tlusty skates against tougher competition and in slightly more defensive-minded situations. Everyone else is either getting better results with softer minutes, or equal results with harder minutes, or better results with harder minutes. The exceptions being McClement and Dwyer, who are deployed strictly in defensive situations and can be forgiven for having terrible Corsi.


edit: lol, just noticed Malone hiding down there at the bottom. So he's terrible too.

 

[What the Faulk]

One of the stats guys...if it pleases you...can you post a through stats-based analysis of Semin so far this year. I'd like to see the difference, if any, between the advanced stats and the eye test. That would be interesting, although admittedly anecdotal (based only on one player).

Alex Semin's deployment is virtually the same as Jeff Skinner's, and both have relatively similar goals for/60 while on the ice, but Semin hasn't gotten points on nearly as many of them. He's top 5 in on-ice attempts for/60 as well, which leads me to believe that he's not nearly the roadblock that some have made him out to be.

Individually, as we know, his attempts and production are way down. This kinda points to him actually doing the little things to contribute while not necessarily appearing on the scoresheet. That's not what he's getting paid for, I think we can all agree, but he's not exactly a liability out there either. He's drawn 6 penalties to 4 taken, and only Gerbe, Nash, and Lindholm (shocker) have a better differential.

A little math: he's taken 45 attempts in 15 games. Let's say for a minute that there is some difference in repeatability between SOGs and misses. Over his career he's hit the net on 48% of all attempts. Over his Carolina career, that number is 45%, so let's meet in the middle and weigh recent production a bit and say 46%.

Now let's look at shooting percentage. 9.61% for his career and 7.72% in Carolina, so let's randomly give him 8.5%.

At 3 attempts per game (70 games), with 46% of those being on goal, and 8.5% of those resulting in goals, we're looking at about 8 even strength goals. This is obviously not including the powerplay. For comparison, he scored 12 last year. I don't anticipate him only attempting 3 shots per game for the rest of the season though. EDIT: If we adjust to his career average of 3.6 attempts per game, we get 10 ES goals.

Irrelevant stats: he has more hits than Eric Staal.

 

[nobuddy]

One of the stats guys...if it pleases you...can you post a through stats-based analysis of Semin so far this year. I'd like to see the difference, if any, between the advanced stats and the eye test. That would be interesting, although admittedly anecdotal (based only on one player).

Lowest point production of his career so far this year, obviously.

An unsustainably low PDO of a 95.2.

Positive possession player against tough competition but with soft zone starts.

Since his scratching his fancy stats have been inconsistent on a game to game basis. He's barely in the negative most nights, but the nights where he's been in the positive he's REALLY in the positive.

Ironically, he was fantastic in terms of fenwick during the losing streak before he got scratched. He didn't have a negative game until Edmonton (-1). He was +33 in the games before that.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

So not understanding advanced stats at all and simply using the eye test on both those charts, Tarheel's chart appears to say Semin's been pretty terrible, while WTF's chart appears to say Semin has been decent.

 

[What the Faulk]

So not understanding advanced stats at all and simply using the eye test on both those charts, Tarheel's chart appears to say Semin's been pretty terrible, while WTF's chart appears to say Semin has been decent.

Mine uses TOI to measure quality of competition while his uses corsi. I think corsi is better, but War on Ice was giving me some wacky numbers for that so I just used TOI instead. But like using just corsi, using just deployment isn't a good way to measure players either.

 

[Sens1Canes2]

Thanks for doing that.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I don't know if my chart says he's been terrible exactly, just that he's been one of the weakest on the team. Like, in the Nash/Boychuk range.

The two charts are actually in fairly close agreement in a broad sense -- except for how they portray Staal and Skinner. Mine (which I am now going to stop calling "mine" because it belongs to hockeyabstract.com) shows that duo being a hair better than the Nash/Boychuk duo, whereas war-on-ice.com shows Skinner and Staal being the weaker pair.

Both charts agree that Gerbe has been the most impressive, though that may have something to do with the fact that Gerbe's never seen a shot he didn't like.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Which is weird, because the eye test (or at least, my eye test) said that Gerbe's been pretty much a non-factor for most of the season. Just a warm body that hasn't ****ed up enough to get noticed.

 

[RodTheBawd]

I must watch entirely different games than some of you.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Outside of the last game, I can't remember Gerbe being the kind of impact player he was last year.

 

[What the Faulk]

Speaking of Gerbe, I was looking at fancy stats from now back to 2002, and he's probably skated the 1st or 2nd toughest minutes in that time-frame (1200+ ES minutes, any player to play for Carolina). The fact that he's anywhere close to break even is really impressive. His "competitors" Brandon Sutter and Patrick Dwyer, aren't.

 

[RodTheBawd]

Outside of the last game, I can't remember Gerbe being the kind of impact player he was last year.

Yeah I didn't mean that as a knock on you or anything, just funny how differently people see things. I'd say Gerbe has been the most consistently noticeable (in a good way) player on the ice for us all season.

 

[Joe McGrath]

Outside of the last game, I can't remember Gerbe being the kind of impact player he was last year.

I think Gerbe since his return to the lineup has been pretty good. Last year he was an impact player for the first two months and the was completely invisible for a solid 3 months (with the circus goal smack in the middle)

 

[tarheelhockey]

Which is weird, because the eye test (or at least, my eye test) said that Gerbe's been pretty much a non-factor for most of the season. Just a warm body that hasn't ****ed up enough to get noticed.

One thing he does do well is generate shots. He's a puck hound and that leads to a lot of turnovers that he converts into immediate scoring chances. When you consider what Corsi is supposed to measure (rate of shots taken vs allowed, which correlates highly with positive results on the scoreboard) it makes sense that Gerbe would fare well in that metric. For him to fare well while also being used in respectably difficult situations is impressive. Not blow-you-away impressive like what Jordan Staal did the past couple of years, but good enough to hold his own.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Maybe I simply need to pay more attention to him then.